Alabama

South Alabama baseball falls to Florida Atlantic in series opener

Florida Atlantic claimed round one of a Sun Belt Conference showdown Friday night at Stanky Field, topping South Alabama 7-2 to move into first place.

Owls right-hander Ryan Garton (6-1) gave up just five hits and two runs in seven innings, and FAU backed him with 13 hits off five Jaguars pitchers to improve to 30-15 overall and 18-7 in the conference.

"Their pitcher did a very good job early in the game of keeping us off balance," coach Steve Kittrell said after USA dropped to 28-19, 15-7. "I think we were a little rusty from the break (nine days off for exams). But give all the credit to their pitcher. He threw strikes.

"We started hitting at the end and hopefully we can take a little momentum into tomorrow."

South Alabama starter D.D. Hanks (9-3) lasted just five innings, allowing nine hits and five runs.

"D.D.'s control was not what I've seen all year," said Kittrell. "D.D. was up in the zone a little bit and the one inning hurt him. And their hitters swung the bats."

In the fourth, the Owls' Andy Mee cleared the bases with a two-out, three-run double to right for a 4-0 lead. In the fifth, Florida Atlantic made it 5-0 on Anthony Mesa's two-out single, and scored its final two runs in the sixth off USA reliever Jake Leblanc.

The Jaguars scored in the seventh on Sean Laird's RBI single, and in the eighth on Adam Heisler's run-scoring infield single. Owls reliever Ryan Bernal got out of a no-outs, bases-jammed situation by retiring the next three batters.

The series continues today at 6 p.m., with South Alabama needing a victory to regain first place.

"We've got to even this series up," said Kittrell. "We've been in this position before. We lost the first game to Arkansas State and came back to win the series. We're going with (Lance) Baxter tomorrow against their number one guy, Mike Gipson.

"When you get late in the year, you get into the position where you just have to win. We've got to give them some losses. We've got to show up and even the series and have a chance on Sunday. If we don't, we've really got our work cut out for us."